Lara Croft Tomb Raider (12) Reviews

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Good Points: Angelina Jolie, she's a great actress who's gorgeous to boot.

Bad Points: A mishmash of other film's plots and stunts. Not that original.

General comments: Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

It's definitely Batgirl meets Indiana Jones in the second instalment of the films made famous by a pair of virtual reality breasts.

This time Lara Croft, played by the once-eclectic Academy Award winner Angelina Jolie, is after a map that will show the location of Pandora's Box. The box is rumoured to reside in the Cradle of Life from whence life sprang forth about 2,500 years ago. Since everything in nature comes in opposite pairs, the 'anti-life' created at the same time was placed in a box and hidden from the prying eyes of man. The box subsequently went missing and was found by Alexander the Great, along with a map showing the location of the box's original resting place. Alexander returns the box to its resting place and secretes the map inside his Lunar Temple on the island of Santorini in the Aegean Sea. The temple is subsequently swept into the sea by a great earthquake and map and box were never seen again.

Cradle of Life steals royally from the first film in that Lara is in a race against time to discover the whereabouts of the box before a rival group get their hands on it whilst at the same time teaming up with a former lover who you're never quite sure whose side he's really on. Another problem is the familiar James Bond flaw that you know Lara will get out of every sticky situation and triumph in the end, if only so there can be a Tomb Raider 3.

That said LCTR: COL is a good fun film of guns, gadgetry, guys and gals and Angelina Jolie is nothing if not gorgeous as she pouts her way around every scene. The villain of the piece, Jonathan Reiss, is played adequately by Ciar n Hinds. He is reminiscent of many previous Bond villains with his Englishness and contempt for life. Indeed, there is even a blatant amalgamation of the scenes from A View to a Kill and Thunderball where Reiss briefs his consortium on his plan, demands $100,000,000 from each of them for the privilege and murders one of them for a previous betrayal. Come on Hollywood, let's see something original.

There are a few annoying moments in the film such as Lara and her former beau Terry Sheridan, played by Gerard Butler, motor biking along the Great Wall of China in an attempt to remain inconspicuous(?) Or Sheridan's uncanny knack of finding out where Lara's headed next by stumbling upon the same family on a Hong Kong houseboat as she has just done, as if Hong Kong is that sparsely populated!

Light relief is provided in the form of Chris Barrie and Noah Taylor as Hillary the butler and Bryce the computer geek respectively, both back by popular demand after their short but amusing performances in the first Tomb Raider. This time they get the chance to play 'field agents' as they are kidnapped by Reiss and carted off to Africa as hostages.

Finally, my favourite actor in the film is Djimon Hounsou, better known for his performances as Juba, Russell Crowe's comrade in arms in Gladiator and as Cinque in the critically acclaimed Amistad. In LCTR: COL Djimon plays a member of an African tribe acting as interpreter between Lara and the tribal chief, an appropriate role since Djimon was born in Benin in Western Africa in 1964.

LCTR: COL is not rubbish but it's not brilliant either. Go and see it if you fancy some mental malnourishment. You might get bored and slide towards the edge of you seat but, unfortunately, there's nothing to keep you there.

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They say that it's only the true Lara Croft fans that went out to see the Tomb Raider movie... WRONG!!! It's the TRUE Lara fans that didn't go and see the movie, we are LARA fans and don't believe in Angelina Jolie's replication of Lara. Jolie is Jolie, Croft is Croft, there's a big difference between the 2, like, they're 2 completely different people and the TRUE Lara Croft fans want to see LARA in a movie, not AJ. Now that the 1st movie has been made and the second is in the making the real La ...

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Went to see Lara Croft Tomb Raider at the cinema and would have been quite happy just to view it at home on the telly. Nowhere near top class, this film is very average in my judgement. The idea for the film was a good one, the characters were good, but overall the acting was poor, especially from Angelina Jolie who, in my estimations was not suited for the role. Instead of being the ruthless wonder woman, she was more concerned about lip pouting and camera angles than anything else. The classic ...

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There is no bad points about Lara Croft Tomb Raider-the game and the movie r totally ace so......
i have have completed TR 1 2 3 4 5 and i have watched the movie. tomb raider is the best thing tht has happened 2 the world!

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I have played far too much Tombraider in my time and loved it. I was really looking forward to the film. It was a big disappointment. Angelina Jolie looks fantastic and her accent is perfect but there's not much you can do with an an incomprehensible jumble of action scenes. And even then she doesn't do much. She tips over the edge of glacial coolness to become a robotic, unfeeling automaton. Consequently the attempted "love interest" aspect of the film doesn't work either. I would at the ...

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The Tomb Raider film is carried by the incredible character Lara Croft who is superbly played by Angelina Jolie. Unfortunately my girlfriend gets jealous and wont let me buy it!!!